Explore:

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Julia reviews Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Title/Author: Cinder by Marissa MeyerPublisher/Year Published:January 2012 by Feiwel & FriendsHow I got this book: From my local libraryWhy I read this book: Short answer: The coverRating: 5 stars

I am going to do something different with the Goodreads summary for Cinder. I am going to bold all of the things that made me want to read this book. Here we go.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

So Humans and Androids? Already sounds interesting right? Yes. We would be right. The intermingling of humans and machines, and human machines is awesome and unique. The machines are integrated into society just like watching a cool updated Jetsons. The futuristic piece of this novel is very well done!

New Beijing? So this is set in the East somewhere. I LOVE Asian type books. Unfortunately this isn't maximized to it's full potential, but the mentions of the culture are there if you look. They use chopsticks, the celebrations are decorated in red and gold, things like that. But outside of the Chinese honorifics and these side things, it could very well be set in America. What's next?

Gifted mechanic cyborg Cinder? Yes please! I love that she is, well, useful for lack of a better term. She takes control of her own destiny despite obstacles in her path. She is a very strong lead and the serious highlight of the story.

Step-sister's illness. So I see this and I read that while it is a Cinderella retelling, Meyer also makes it her own. And it really succeeds at this. Meyer takes a fairy tale that we know from either the original story or the Disney movie and seamlessly interweaves the plot points into an awesome retelling.

Intergalactic struggle huh? Spcae?! LUNAR PEOPLE! Well yup. There is an evil moon people and a fun story-line surrounding that. This and the post-apocalyptic atmospheric make it a wonderful SciFi dystopian.

Outside of all of that, the story was very fulfilling. A little more world building would have been cool, but there are three other books in the series. Kai's character is starting off okay, but I look forward to reading more about him and watching him develop further. Cinder however is awesome and probably one of my favorite heroines that I have read in a while. The twist, if that is what is was suppose to be, is really predictable as is the story if you are at all familiar with Cinderella, but I don't think that is a bad thing.

It is a GREAT start to a new series that I know I will be devouring as they come out! If you like fairy tales, dystopians, scifi or YA, check this out!

19 comments:

I completely felt the same way about this book. A little more world building would be great...but did not detract at all from this story! I was completely hooked and loved every minute of it...and cannot believe that I have to wait a YEAR for a sequel!

Not to detract you from reading it, but on Goodreads I rated it a 4/5 because i really like it but there were minor things that bothered me. One was the word building and second that I didn't mention too much here was Prince Kai. He's not as developed as Cinder.

Did I like it? Yes. And I will probably read it again (which is a 5 here). Best book eva?! Not really, not a 5+

We have a strange rating system sometimes :) It is really really hard for a book to get 5 stars for me. I think out of 400 books on GR I have maybe 10 5 stars. Maybe I should have done 4.5 lol

I totally agree, I loved this retelling! I feel like Marissa Meyer did a wonderful job of keeping the structure of Cinderella, while still making it her own. I love retellings, but lately I feel like the ones I've read are either so close to the original it's almost boring, or so far from the original that it's barely recognizable other than at its barest elements. Cinder is the perfect balance, and I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

That was a cool idea to bold what interested you in the summary; there are so many reasons to give this a shot and it framed the review well. I was drawn n by the Cinderella story but my favorite part ended up being the romance. Kai is a great guy-responsible and caring. Hopefully they will have a compelling fight with the lunar people.

I reviewed this book on my blog, too, and LOVED it! I am not usually a sci-fi fan, but read it as part of a reading challenge I'm participating in. I agree... I, too, will be devouring this entire series!

Full Disclosure:

We are Amazon Affiliates! What does this mean?

Simply put, if you see a book on our blog that strikes your fancy and you would like to buy it, you can click on the link and it will take you to Amazon to purchase it. A percentage of that sale comes back to the folks here at The Broke and Bookish so that we can host awesome giveaways and afford shipping costs. We are so appreciative of those of you who support us through this program. We love to give back to our readers, but don't always have the extra money to do so, seeing as how we are broke college students!